Married Life
We didn't have a wedding at all. Budd was going deer hunting, we were married in October, and he said, "I think we should get married when I get home." I said, "ok, what day?" He said, "well, how about Friday?" (laughter) He was gone the week before and would be gone that weekend. He wasn't getting home until Tuesday, and we were going to the temple to take out my endowments then, and then we could get married on Friday. Another thing too, was they were starting to draft men, we weren't at war at that time, but they were drafting men. I was afraid that he would get drafted and he was afraid that he would get drafted and if he had to go then he was afraid he would lose me completely. We had gone together for four months by then, our first date was on June the 8th, 1941. It was on December the 7th that the bombs were dropped on Hawaii. Anyway, we got married on October 24, 1941 right after he got home from deer hunting. He got home and we got ready and went to the temple. It was sad that we didn't have a wedding because neither one of us had one thing to put together an apartment, or anything. My folks didn't have anything. Aunt Luella made me a quilt and dad gave me a cheap set of dishes that had been given to him. He was a county clerk and someone had given them to him as a gift for some favor he had done. So that is all we had.
We lived in an upstairs apartment in Bountiful. The man who owned it had put a little kitchen upstairs so that it could be a two apartment home. Budd was working nights and I was working days so we didn't see each other a lot. I worked for something Steel and Copper Co. and a Mr Orloff worked there. There were a lot of sales men that would come in there and there was a lot of drinking and stuff. In fact Mr. Orloft had drinks for them when they came in. But he watched me, and this was something I wasn't aware of, at the time, but he would always ask me if I was alright. One day he kept asking me if I was alright and then he brought me into his office, there were a lot of men in the office that day and they were flirting with the women and I was the youngest one there. He had me just work in his office that day, I was really out of place. But, now I would appreciate it, at the time I was very upset with him. I think he was just worried that one of those men would really get fresh with me. When I asked him for time off to get married, I only asked for half a day off. I wanted to leave work early on Friday so we could get married. He asked why and I told him so I could get married. He said, "Never let it be said that I refused one of my girls a full day off to get married." And he told me not to come into work on Friday. It was cute of him. He gave me a radio from the company and a rolling pin. As he was hitting the rolling pin against the desk he was telling me that I wouldn't need this gift right at first, but it was all wrapped up so I didn't know what it was. He was a really cute guy, he wasn't a latter-day saint, but a darling man.
I had to get used to him because I was raised in a very solemn family. You din't hear a lot of jokes or laughter or games or anything. Dad wouldn't allow a deck of cards in our house. It was a sin to play cards. And here I've had a son that has died early because of his getting away from the church and gambling. So, I should have stayed just like dad did and not allow cards in the house.
Budd sat me down after we decided to get married and he said, "You cannot join the Tingey family without knowing how to play Peanuckle. You've got to be a peanuckle player to be able to stay in this family." So he sat me down after we were married. We had a little apartment in Bountiful, it was an upstairs apartment. His niece had the downstairs with her husband, they were really close friends of Budds. We really had a good time with them while we lived there. Anyway, we played cards after I learned a little bit. I never got to the point where I was really a valuable player. No one ever wanted to be on my team. So I would get up and fix the desserts when they would come and they could all play without me. But I did play a lot, I played a lot of peanuckle and I enjoyed the game other than I wasn't a really good player. I know uncle Charles' wife and her family played so much. They would stay up all night long. Most of them were from California and when they would come they would have a really big time. Spouses weren't even invited when they got together, they just wanted to be together as brother sand sisters and play. That is something I didn't approve of at all. Uncle Charles' would come over to our house and say, "Oh, she's over there playing cares with her sisters." When she passed away why her sister from California put a new deck of peanuckle cards under her pillow in her casket. I thought that was cute, she was such a wonderful person and I can't think of her name.
Aunt Betty just died this year, and that was her sister, and that was her sister, and she was 98 years old when she died. It was funny, they lived at Grey's Lake, so you didn't have a great choice of dates. This family, I don't know how long they lived there, but the boys started dating the girls in that family. Uncle Charles married Aunt ? Lue and Uncle Mel married Aunt Betty. Two brothers married sisters. And one of their brothers married Aunt Alice's sister and Aunt Alice married Perry Tingey and Aunt Dorothy, was sisters with Alice and the other sister. So the Tingey family had a triangle where a brother and two sisters were all in the same family. But, in the Tingey family Aunt Loretta married a Halbertson and Aunt El married a Halbertson brother, then Uncle Charles and Uncle Mel married the Tingey sisters, and Aunt Dorothy and Alice married Uncle Perry and Uncle Tom. Two sets of boys and one set of girls married brothers and sisters. Isn't that something! Oh, my yes they all got along. I was so fortunate to marry into that family, because my family hadn't been a happy family after my mother died. We just had to fight for each other and ourselves and it just wasn't good. I got into that family where they just all wanted to be together all the time, they just loved each other. I can remember after I had had my baby, Budd was gone when Darrell was born, and they just took me in. They treated me as if I was one of their daughters, the older sisters did, I had nieces and nephews that were older than I was and I became their aunt over night.
One time I went shopping with Aunt May, she was the oldest daughter in the family, she was 25 years older than Budd. You can see that 12 children were born in 25 years of each other. Anyway, I went shopping with her one time and she was buying things for her daughters and when we got home she handed me a blouse she had bought for me. That was the first time anyone had done anything like that for me. I just couldn't get over it. They were such a sweet family. I just wish with all of my heart that all of the grand kids could have got to know Budd.
In December, when Hawaii was bombed, Budd said that this was the end and he knew that he would be gone right away. I just kept praying to get pregnant. I needed to be pregnant. I was so afraid that if anything happened to Budd I wouldn't have anything left. I had to talk long and hard for that too. He didn't want to leave me pregnant or with a child, he said if he died then I could get married again much easier without a child. He had a lot more sense than I had, but we did get pregnant and Darrell was born in September. Budd was still in boot camp or training here in the states at that time and he got 10 days leave to see the baby. So as soon as the baby was born he said I could go get an apartment where he was and then he'd be able to come see us. So I had everything all packed and was going to go right after thanksgiving to see him, I was taking care of Loretta (and lee's home?) at the time. She was ill, she was always in poor health. But he called and he had to be careful what he said on the phone, because they were always listening and if you said something you weren't allowed to they would delete it out. He wasn't allowed to say where they were going or what they were allowed to do. So, he said we're leaving (he couldn't say from where) we're going over seas and I know this is a disappointment to you that you can't come down and see me. But, why don't you go down, get a ticket and go down, to see Aunt Alice and Uncle Perry for a few days, right now. Get a ticket right now and go visit them. They were in California and that was where he was going to ship out from. There was a fort there in Northern California. When he got to California the boat wasn't in and they were going to be there for a few days before they shipped out. So, he called Alice and Berry and told them that I was coming. He got two days off, two 24 hour blocks off while I was there and he got to see the baby and to see me. It was a horrible time. Then he left and it took over a month for him to get over seas to their destination. They had to keep away from submarines and so they would just have to sit on the water without motors running because of Japanese submarines patrolling the water. It was a horrible time for him. They went to New Zealand and were there for a couple of days and Australia also, on their way across the ocean. He said he couldn't believe how many signs in New Zealand that had Tingey so and so on them. There were some Tingey's that had migrated there and had made a business there. It was a shock for him to see his name everywhere. He wasn't able to tell me anything that was going on, all the letters were read through before being sent. He was able to say that he was in Iran after he got there and he could say that they were transporting things into Russia. But they couldn't tell how things were going and stuff. He didn't do well health wise while he was there. He went to the hospital with a fever one time and he never told me about it. He had health problems the rest of his life after he was stationed there. He used to pass out, it would come on him all of a sudden and then he would just pass right out. He did get over that eventually.
When he got home, or they let him come home to go to OCS (Officers Candidate School) in New Orleans, I took a trip to see him and I told him it didn't matter how long we had been apart, I'd never go on a trip like that again to see him. It was just terrible. I was traveling with a two year old and there was no red caps at all and I was on a soldiers train. It was loaded with soldiers. Uncle Gordon got my tickets all the way through. I had been on a train just once and that was to go down to California and I had a room of my own on the train. You know those little compartments, so I was in a cute little room with my baby all the way down there and that was just fine. It was a wonderful trip down. I thought that was how it would be going to New Orleans. I got on in Salt Lake and I had a compartment and it was just wonderful. Got over to Denver and we had a lay over for eight hours there, that I didn't know anything about. When we went to get on the train, it was a troop train going to Texas and we had to wait until all the troops were on the train. There were no red caps and I had two suitcases and a baby that was two years old and wouldn't walk. He walked, but he was scared to death of everything and I had to have him in my arms every minute that we were trying to go anywhere. It was just awful. I finally got the suitcases out to the train with him crying, hanging onto me. I didn't know what train I was getting on because they had no reserved seats, you just had to find a seat. I put my suitcases up in the train and left them so I could go up and down each train to try and find a seat. I finally found one and sat down and more soldiers came in. The conductor told me that this was a soldiers train and I had to give up my seat to them. There was one soldier there that said he would sit on a suitcase if I had one for him to sit on. I told him they were clear back in another train, I counted the trains I had went through and he went back and got my suitcases. That kid did that and then he sat on my suitcases the whole way. We were getting off in Dallas overnight and I didn't have any reservations. I thought I was going to be on a nice train and go straight to New Orleans, I didn't know anything about it. It was just horrible. Darrell had just turned two, but was trained so I didn't take any diapers with me and he wet everything, I'm sure it was just all the different things going on, but he wet every pair of pants I had for him. By the time we got into Dallas I just kept a blanket around him because there were no dry clothes for him. It was so terrible. Then when I got off this one soldier that was so good to me, said you can't go in and just ask for reservations at a hotel, you have to find out what kind of hotel you are going to first. He said it was dangerous down here in some of these hotels. So I went to the desk and asked the girl if there were any rooms and I told her I wanted a first class hotel. She said she didn't have one thing and she showed me h ow everything was filled up. I said well, I'll just have to stay here all night in this station because I didn't want to go to a low class hotel, there were a few rooms in those, but I wouldn't do it. I was afraid. So she looked for rooms in hotels outside of Dallas. I was just praying with all my heart that there was one and she said you know there is one room left and it was a suite. I didn't think I would be able to afford it but she told me it was $10.00, which I thought was terrible in those days. I did have ten dollars so I took it and it was just wonderful. I washed all of Darrell's pants and hung them by the cooler to dry. Then we had to get on the train the next day and Budd wasn't even able to meet me. He was only able to get out of his schooling every other weekend so he couldn't come and get me. He had called a man that was in the Navy, from Centerville that he knew, who was serving down there and he came and got me. I was so happy to see him, so glad and in fact he was the one who found and had done everything for me. His name was Nelson Clayton. His grandfather was the one who wrote the song, "Come, Come Ye Saints." He was a really, really neat guy and I still see him once and a while. He had gotten me a one bedroom, that was all he could find, with kitchen and bathroom privileges. It was a family with four kids and her husband was over seas. I enjoyed her and it was fine, once I got there. At times I didn't think I would even get there. The trains weren't air conditioned so we just had to have the windows open and cinders were constantly flying through.
I was down there until Budd graduated. It was September when I went down there and he graduated in the first of December. He graduated with honors and was lucky, some of the men didn't' make it. There were about 300 men taking the classes and quite a few didn't pass, but he did. I was going to go home then, if he could get me on a train that would go straight through and not a soldier train. There was no way for me to do it alone and I wanted him to arrange the tickets, but he didn't want me to go home, he wanted me to go to New York with him. I said if I go to New York you'll be gone and it will be worse because New York is a lot bigger than this place. I just didn't want to be alone there. But he said, "I might not ever see you again, you've got to think of that." So I ended up going to New York with him.
Of course we couldn't find a place to stay. Budd got in touch with a woman who was married to a man, a soldier, that Budd knew while he was in Iraq and asked her if she knew of anything at all. She said you can come live in my apartment and I'll stay with my sister until you can find a place. It was very sweet of her. Boy, New York was a different place than I was used to. Budd had to work 48 hours and then he was off 48 hours. It was a lot better than New Orleans, especially once I got acquainted with the place it was ideal. We got to see so many things in the 48 hours he had off.
When we got to New York, they told us it would be two months before there would be a ship for them to go back to Iraq. They didn't travel by air at all in those days. Our first apartment we found was with a little Jewish lady. We rented a bedroom up stairs and had kitchen privileges downstairs. She was a sweet little lady and I just loved her. She called herself Mrs. Thomas, but that wasn't her Jewish name. There was an Italian girl who lived in the basement with her baby, she was living alone because her husband was overseas. Mrs. Thomas worked everyday in a store. Her husband was dead and she had an eleven year old daughter to take care of. Her other children were older, married, and gone. It was a very nice apartment she had. She told me I could do anything in her home until she got home at night. And that darn Darrell colored her hand painted dining room walls in crayon! She forgave me for that and we tried to get it cleaned off as best we could and I gave her extra money. But I'll never forget it! I thought that they must have been well off, they had so many dishes and so much silverware. Now I didn't' know that Jewish people believed that certain foods couldn't be eaten together or on a plate that had been used for something else. And that's why she had so much stuff in her kitchen. But I didn't know that, this was all new to me. One day the girl from downstairs came up and said, "Grayce do you know what you are doing to poor Mrs Thomas?" And I said, "what?" And she said, "well, in their religion you don't use certain foods on certain plates if something else has ever been on it. Same thing with the silverware, you don't eat the same foods with the same silverware." I said, "I surely didn't know that." and she said, "well, she is out purifying the dishes that you use everyday with sand. Scouring them with sand trying to get them pure enough so that she could use them." Oh my goodness I was so upset about that, so I went right to her and said, "Why in the world didn't you tell me?" And she said, "I just didn't think that it mattered that much." I said, "Look what you've had to do to fix it." And she said it was alright and ok for her to do that. She was just so sweet. They never ate bacon, they wouldn't eat pork at all, and I had been frying bacon in her pans! I just didn't know, I had never been around Jewish people before. Anyway, I would tend her little girl when she would go out in the evenings. And one day when I was tending her little girl, before she left she said, "you could fix her a bacon sandwich if you would like to." Evidently her daughter had liked the smell of it and had wanted to try some. So she said it would be alright to let her try some while she was gone. I really cried when we left there, we needed to leave there because we were so tight in there.
We finally found a place in Brooklyn, across the Hudson River from NYC. It was so much better and it was closer to where he was working. The apartment was sublet and so it was furnished and nice. From then on we were alright. Oh, before that, we had found an apartment and Budd moved us in and then he was gone for 48 hours and that night there were so many mice! It was ground floor level and I could just hear those mice running everywhere. I had left some bread and cake on the counter because I needed to clean before I put anything away. So when I got up the cake was half eaten and the bread was so bad you couldn't eat any of it. There were just so many mice in there. I called Budd at work and told him that I couldn't live there, I couldn't even sleep one more night there. I sat in the middle of the bed with Darrell just watching all night for mice to get up on the bed. It was awful! So Budd got leave, he told them the story and they let him come home. And we started looking for a place. A man on base had told him that he knew there was an apartment open next to him and maybe we could get into it. And that is what we did.
The manager had split the apartment so we each had a bedroom and living room and then we shared the kitchen and the bathroom. So the kitchen was in the basement and other than that there was just a door between us. We got along really well and they had a car! We didn't have a car. We became really close friends with them while we lived there. They had a little girl the same age as Darrell and they were little playmates. She died of pneumonia while we were there and it was terrible. She died suddenly. They took her to the hospital because she couldn't breathe, she was just gasping for breath. It wasn't a half hour later that they called and said she was gone, it was just terrible. They were our friends throughout life. They lived back in Kansas and came out to see us a few times, but we never got back there to see them. And then he died of a heart attack one day. She and I would write back and forth, especially on each others birthdays and at Christmas. Then five or six years ago I didn't get a letter from her, so I assumed she passed away. They were the Sinnings, La Vir and Henry Sinning. She called Henry Budd too.
We just loved our stay out there once we got into that little place. We had a backyard to play in and it was just wonderful the rest of the time we were there. We were there until the war ended. We really enjoyed the area and the people. It was such a clean area, it was a Norwegian area and Budd really loved it because he could speak Norwegian with the people. They would get up in the morning and hang their bedding out the windows so the air could get through the bedding. We didn't have driers in those days and we washed on a scrubbing board downstairs and then everyone hung their clothes out to dry. But the first day that I hung them on the line outside, they came in dirtier than before I washed them because the air was so dirty in New York. So I hung everything to dry inside. I don't know how they managed hanging their things outside. But they sure did and the ladies were out there cleaning the sidewalks the minute it started to snow. They would sweep the whole time it was snowing. But I did enjoy living there because they kept things nice and clean. We surely enjoyed it anyway.
Thanks to the Sinnings we got to see a lot more of upstate New York than we would have. We also took trips to Washington D.C. and we could stay with her aunt and uncle that lived there. We were there one thanksgiving and once at Christmas time when they got a little red wagon for Darrell. And in the summer time we spent a lot of time at the beach because Budd had 48 hours off. Henry worked on base too and since he and Budd weren't in the same office they could take the same 48 hours off and we were able to go to all these places together. We always said we'd go back and we made one trip back there before Budd passed away. It wasn't the same place at all. All of the stores that had anything of value in them had gates and bars over all of the windows, you couldn't even see what was in Tiffany's or any of the department stores. It wasn't anything like that when we lived there. It seemed to have gotten a lot worse than it was back then.
I was really impressed with the parks in New York. Everyone living in apartments they had to have a place to rest or for kids to go play and I really liked that. I couldn't get over that all the parks they had every few blocks. I was really impressed with it. I really did love it, but I was also really glad to come home.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Sunday, February 23, 2014
How Grandma Met Grandpa
I met Budd after I graduated form High School. What I actually did was, well my two Layton friends were going up to Logan to go to school. We called it the AC then. So I decided I would go with them. I didn't know that dad wouldn't let me go to college, well didn't have the money for me to go to college. I thought that he would see that I got into college. I worked all that summer and had earned enough money that it would pay for my keep up there. I worked in the cannery and saved my money. So I went with these two girls up to get us our apartment and I told dad I was going up to get my apartment to go to college. He said he had talked it over with Aunt Luella, my stepmother, and they decided it was not possible to let both Martha and I go to college at the same time. See, we were just the same age and Martha was going to go up to the University of Utah. Dad said he was sorry, that he just couldn't give me the money, but I could go if I could manage some other way. So I had to give up that and so I went to the LDS Business College because they would let me go without paying until I got far enough a long and then they would send me out to work. They would get my pay. Companies would call the college and if anyone was ill or gone, they would say they needed a girl for so long. So the girls that couldn't pay would go work at these temporary jobs. That was really a blessing for me because it was hard to get jobs in those days. When I got through with my schooling, when I was far enough a long that I could leave, why I had enough experience that I got a job at the first place I went to. It's because I had experience. So that was perfect for me. I worked for the Utah Copper Company and they were combined with another company and that is who I went to work for.
Budd worked nights, I hadn't met him when I started working, but I hadn't worked very long when I met him. He came up to the school where I was, he had been on a mission then, and he had just gotten home. He didn't go on a mission at nineteen. He was working and kept putting it off. He was twenty four when we got married and we got married the year that I met him. He hadn't been home form his mission very long. I can't remember the year that he came home form his mission but I think that it must have been that same year that we were married. We'd see each other every night. He'd come up after I got through work, but we didn't always go out sporting either because we couldn't afford it. We'd just talk and sit out on the porch and stuff. He was home from his mission and living with his mother. Anyway, I should tell you how met him. So I started business school and Martha started college and she lasted there one week. One week that was all. They were having a test right at the beginning of the first week of school and she folded right up and left. She wasn't going to take a test if she didn't want to. I got along in business school ok and I got along with the kids that I met down there. I met a couple boys there that I really had fun with and then Martha started coming to he business school.
It's funny that I got a ride with a man that was working at the Capitol to go in there. He was charging me so much a month to go, to bring me in, and he would let me off at the school. I didn't even remember how Martha got into school, I don't remember that, but she never went in with me. Martha met Budd in short class. Now Uncle Gordon, Budd's brother-in-law, got Budd a job at the UP as a boy that would take things from one office to another. An errand boy, he had to use a bicycle to go from one building to another and such. So Uncle Gordon told him that if he would go to school and learn short hand there was another job that was going to open up and maybe they would hire Budd. So Budd came down to the business school to take short hand.
I didn't meet him because I wasn't in that class and I was almost through and as soon as I was through with school, my Aunt in California said I could come down and stay with them. She knew how unhappy I was. And she said that she had talked to her brother who was a manager of the Bank of America down there, and he said that he could use me if I came down. So I was going to go down there as soon as I got finished with schooling. Anyway I took a week off of school to hep Aunt Luella house clean our house. I had told Aunt Luella that I was going to move to California and I would help her clean before I went if she wanted me to. She said I couldn't do it and go to school so I had to take a leave of absence from school.
Oh, I've got to go back further. I was practicing for a program, singing in the auditorium down there one day. Budd came in to where we were practicing and I was sitting by a girl that he knew and he came over and sat on her lap and acted like a nut. She pinched him and said, "get off me Pudge, get off of me." He told her that he thought she was beautiful and that he wanted to stay there. He was just acting out, he was a nut! When he left I said, "who in the world was that?" She said, "oh, that's Pudge Tingey." Well the thing of it was, and I learned this after I was married to him from Aunt Lorretta. She told me that he came up to her house that day and said, "I've found her, I've founder, I've found her!" And Aunt Lorretta said, "Who have you found?"Budd told her, "the girl that I'm going to marry!" So she asked him what her name was and he told her that he didn't know her name, but he was going to find out. So he walked in to the auditorium and I must have appealed to him in some way. So he came and made a fool of himself I don't know how he found out, I really don't know because he would never talk about it, but he found out who I was. He was in the same class with Martha and Martha said when he found out she was from Kaysville he had asked her if she knew me. Or maybe he asked June, the girl from Bountiful that I had been sitting by at the practice. I don't know, but weeks later he got together with Martha and they planned a picnic up Mueller Park. He told her to invite Grayce and anyone else she could think of and he would invite a bunch of guys and his cousin that had just come home from a mission who had a brand new car. He told her he'd have his cousin bring his car and go. Budd had an old clunker that he was driving. Anyway, Martha got a whole bunch of kids together, from the school, for this picnic. Budd wrote me a note to invite me, it's in a box downstairs somewhere. I've still got that note. It was written on the side of a cardboard grocery box. It was written in Hill Billy language too. It said we're all gon' to go up to the park, I can't even remember all the wording on it. At the end of it he said that I was invited to come and to be sure to not bring a swimming suit because we're going swimming. I told Martha that he must be an idiot and she said that he told her that I had to come, but she told me she was going to be the one in his car and she said don't you dare get with him. I told her that I didn't even know him and that he sounded like an idiot. I went on that party. We were to meet down at the LDS Business School, they and a huge lot, it's where the Relief Society building is now. The whole school was set way back and there was a huge lawn, it was just beautiful. When we got there he just came over and took me me by the shoulders, you know behind me, and just pushed me right in to his car. I tell you, I had a lot of fun that night, I really did, he was really cute. I changed my attitude about him anyway. When I got home Martha was so mad at me she wouldn't speak to me. But we had a good time, she had a good time. His cousin that had the new car is the guy that she a married, Ralph.
We went into Salt Lake to a fair that was going at that time after the picnic. Then after we had gotten closer and had been thinking about getting married, Budds best friend, Bruner, asked how did this come about so fast? He thought we were getting married pretty quickly. And Budd said, "Well, the first night I was with her her skirt was over her head most of the night and I felt like I had to marry her." Well, we had got in that thing that goes up and your upside down for a while and then it comes back down. And of course girls didn't wear long pants in those days, so I was holding my skirt down all night trying to be modest. He embarrassed me to death! Michael reminds me of Budd so much, I can't tell ya. These things that come out of his mouth. So that's it. Martha married his cousin and she hasn't had a very happy day since, it's really too bad. I don't know how they got married, because he cancelled their marriage date twice and on the third time he finally did it. Budd was overseas then, in the war.
Budd worked nights, I hadn't met him when I started working, but I hadn't worked very long when I met him. He came up to the school where I was, he had been on a mission then, and he had just gotten home. He didn't go on a mission at nineteen. He was working and kept putting it off. He was twenty four when we got married and we got married the year that I met him. He hadn't been home form his mission very long. I can't remember the year that he came home form his mission but I think that it must have been that same year that we were married. We'd see each other every night. He'd come up after I got through work, but we didn't always go out sporting either because we couldn't afford it. We'd just talk and sit out on the porch and stuff. He was home from his mission and living with his mother. Anyway, I should tell you how met him. So I started business school and Martha started college and she lasted there one week. One week that was all. They were having a test right at the beginning of the first week of school and she folded right up and left. She wasn't going to take a test if she didn't want to. I got along in business school ok and I got along with the kids that I met down there. I met a couple boys there that I really had fun with and then Martha started coming to he business school.
It's funny that I got a ride with a man that was working at the Capitol to go in there. He was charging me so much a month to go, to bring me in, and he would let me off at the school. I didn't even remember how Martha got into school, I don't remember that, but she never went in with me. Martha met Budd in short class. Now Uncle Gordon, Budd's brother-in-law, got Budd a job at the UP as a boy that would take things from one office to another. An errand boy, he had to use a bicycle to go from one building to another and such. So Uncle Gordon told him that if he would go to school and learn short hand there was another job that was going to open up and maybe they would hire Budd. So Budd came down to the business school to take short hand.
I didn't meet him because I wasn't in that class and I was almost through and as soon as I was through with school, my Aunt in California said I could come down and stay with them. She knew how unhappy I was. And she said that she had talked to her brother who was a manager of the Bank of America down there, and he said that he could use me if I came down. So I was going to go down there as soon as I got finished with schooling. Anyway I took a week off of school to hep Aunt Luella house clean our house. I had told Aunt Luella that I was going to move to California and I would help her clean before I went if she wanted me to. She said I couldn't do it and go to school so I had to take a leave of absence from school.
Oh, I've got to go back further. I was practicing for a program, singing in the auditorium down there one day. Budd came in to where we were practicing and I was sitting by a girl that he knew and he came over and sat on her lap and acted like a nut. She pinched him and said, "get off me Pudge, get off of me." He told her that he thought she was beautiful and that he wanted to stay there. He was just acting out, he was a nut! When he left I said, "who in the world was that?" She said, "oh, that's Pudge Tingey." Well the thing of it was, and I learned this after I was married to him from Aunt Lorretta. She told me that he came up to her house that day and said, "I've found her, I've founder, I've found her!" And Aunt Lorretta said, "Who have you found?"Budd told her, "the girl that I'm going to marry!" So she asked him what her name was and he told her that he didn't know her name, but he was going to find out. So he walked in to the auditorium and I must have appealed to him in some way. So he came and made a fool of himself I don't know how he found out, I really don't know because he would never talk about it, but he found out who I was. He was in the same class with Martha and Martha said when he found out she was from Kaysville he had asked her if she knew me. Or maybe he asked June, the girl from Bountiful that I had been sitting by at the practice. I don't know, but weeks later he got together with Martha and they planned a picnic up Mueller Park. He told her to invite Grayce and anyone else she could think of and he would invite a bunch of guys and his cousin that had just come home from a mission who had a brand new car. He told her he'd have his cousin bring his car and go. Budd had an old clunker that he was driving. Anyway, Martha got a whole bunch of kids together, from the school, for this picnic. Budd wrote me a note to invite me, it's in a box downstairs somewhere. I've still got that note. It was written on the side of a cardboard grocery box. It was written in Hill Billy language too. It said we're all gon' to go up to the park, I can't even remember all the wording on it. At the end of it he said that I was invited to come and to be sure to not bring a swimming suit because we're going swimming. I told Martha that he must be an idiot and she said that he told her that I had to come, but she told me she was going to be the one in his car and she said don't you dare get with him. I told her that I didn't even know him and that he sounded like an idiot. I went on that party. We were to meet down at the LDS Business School, they and a huge lot, it's where the Relief Society building is now. The whole school was set way back and there was a huge lawn, it was just beautiful. When we got there he just came over and took me me by the shoulders, you know behind me, and just pushed me right in to his car. I tell you, I had a lot of fun that night, I really did, he was really cute. I changed my attitude about him anyway. When I got home Martha was so mad at me she wouldn't speak to me. But we had a good time, she had a good time. His cousin that had the new car is the guy that she a married, Ralph.
We went into Salt Lake to a fair that was going at that time after the picnic. Then after we had gotten closer and had been thinking about getting married, Budds best friend, Bruner, asked how did this come about so fast? He thought we were getting married pretty quickly. And Budd said, "Well, the first night I was with her her skirt was over her head most of the night and I felt like I had to marry her." Well, we had got in that thing that goes up and your upside down for a while and then it comes back down. And of course girls didn't wear long pants in those days, so I was holding my skirt down all night trying to be modest. He embarrassed me to death! Michael reminds me of Budd so much, I can't tell ya. These things that come out of his mouth. So that's it. Martha married his cousin and she hasn't had a very happy day since, it's really too bad. I don't know how they got married, because he cancelled their marriage date twice and on the third time he finally did it. Budd was overseas then, in the war.
Grandpas Mission to Norway
Grandpa was in Norway when the German army was right at the doorstep of Norway. He was in the upper part of Norway, away from the mission home, he and his companion were. The mission President called or wrote to them, I don't know which they did in those days, and told them that all of the missionaries were to leave Norway. He, the mission President, was leaving with the last group of missionaries on a ship and Budd and his mission companion would be the only missionaries left in Norway. They were told there would be another boat for them, but it wouldn't be there very long. They only had a couple days to get to the ship and neither one of them had any money to get out of there. Budd had said that it was a miracle. He had had an appendicitis attack and he had written home for money so he could have it taken car e of over there. But, no money came from home so the mission helped him pay for it. So, the day they were to leave on the train to get to the ship, he received a letter from his sister Ella. She had sent $35 and told him that she hoped the money would help with his operation and she was sorry that no one in the family had any money to send to help with the operation. Budd had told Grandma that the $35 was exactly what they needed for both of them to get down to the boat and they had been afraid that they had missed the boat.
He had been over there nearly two years. They used to send them for 2.5 years, because they gave them six months to learn the language. They had to learn the language in their mission because they were only in the mission home for two weeks. Everyone only went to the mission home for two weeks and then they learned the language where they were sent. So, they brought him back and sent him to Ohio to finish his mission. He didn't get to go home at all. You never did hear him talk about Ohio, it was always Norway. I didn't even know he served in Ohio, till he had been married a long time and he told me the whole story. He said they were glad to get out of Norway because of the stories they and been hearing about the German soldiers moving through Europe.
He had been over there nearly two years. They used to send them for 2.5 years, because they gave them six months to learn the language. They had to learn the language in their mission because they were only in the mission home for two weeks. Everyone only went to the mission home for two weeks and then they learned the language where they were sent. So, they brought him back and sent him to Ohio to finish his mission. He didn't get to go home at all. You never did hear him talk about Ohio, it was always Norway. I didn't even know he served in Ohio, till he had been married a long time and he told me the whole story. He said they were glad to get out of Norway because of the stories they and been hearing about the German soldiers moving through Europe.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Childhood (Continued)
Virginia and Paul both had music lessons and such, Paul played the clarinet really well. My mother started with me on the piano. We had a piano teacher that would come once a week at the school and I would go there to have my lessons. You would set up an appointment and have your lessons during recess time. So, I did take piano lessons for a little while, but my mother died before I really got into it and I never did have any lessons of any kind after that. Anything that would require money I didn't get. That's too bad too.
We didn't have Jr. High in those days, they did in Bountiful, they had the one on 4th North. But, that was just for the Bountiful and Woods Cross area. Everyone North of that went to Davis High School, so we had four years of Davis High School. We didn't lave grade school till after the 8th grade.
I took speech all the way through High School, I loved that. I was in two plays. They had one play a year and when I was a Junior and a Senior I got to be in both of those plays. As a senior I was the girls association president. That's the only office I ever held. We were in charge of the girls dance and one or two parties during the year. It was fun and we had to do several assemblies that we were in charge of every year.
I skipped school a few times to go see Gone With the Wind. We were terribly shocked that they said damn at the end of the movie! One time our principle got really frustrated because lots of kids skipped school to go see it when it came out.
Well, I went to every dance. In those days you didn't have to be 16 before you could date. I started High School when I was 14 and I went to all of the dances. There was a boy who lived across the street from us, Russell Martin, and I went to the Prom with him that first year. The gang of boys he was with was a lot of fun and they were just a year older than the gang I ran around with, of girls, you know. There were seven of us in the crowd I ran with. There was my step sister, myself, Alice Burton, Barbara from Kaysville, and then Helen and Elizabeth Call from Layton, and Afton Briggs from Bountiful. I still meet with them, we go out at least two or three times a year and have lunch.
It's the same way with this group I have in Centerville. We have been an organized club for many years. When I was pregnant with Bruce we organized it, so it's been going for 60 years. And this literature club I'm in, I've been in it for over 40 years. A lot of people have moved and gone. This club we organized during the war, we added to it after the war and since then a lot have moved away. There are only seven of us left out of 18 to being with. All our husbands are gone too, there's only two husbands left. I think it was very fortunate that way, because if you don't have an outside life, other than your family and husband, then when something happens to your husband you are completely lost. That's what happened to my two sisters. Gloria didn't lose her husband, but she lived in such fear of him going that she committed suicide. She was really sick and she knew that if her husband died before her there would be no one for her. No one at all. Virginia, it wasn't long after Clifford died that she went to a nursing home because she didn't know how to handle it. She never had anyone but her husband. I think you need to have a lot of friends. You need to have some friends close enough that you can count on. I have admired Curt, most boys don't stay together, but his crowd has. They get together two or three times a year too. I think it's a good thing.
High School was fun. I was in with a really wonderful group of girls. It's funny how we got together. There were seven of us that would go and do things together. Isn't it funny that we could get close like that and live all over? Two of the girls married men that became very wealthy, Alice married a man who became a dentist and then he became an orthodontist and he had a really good business and her folks had money too. Then Elizabeth from Layton, why, her husband became the President of the company he was with in California and they became very wealthy. It's fun to get together with them, Elizabeth moved back to Utah her husband died before Budd did. There's only Afton who still has a husband. It's funny how young our husbands all died. My husband and Elizabeth's died really young and Helen's died young, then Martha's husband went. It's the same way with this group that I run around with here in Centerville. So many of our husbands died so young. And Frank White died just this week, his wife is one that has always been in our group in Centerville here. There are seven of us still alive and I think there was about twelve of us at one time. During the war our husbands all went to war, so we just started to get together once in a while and take the Bamberger and go into Salt Lake and go see a show or something. Sometimes we'd meet at each other's places. I was living with Grandma Tingey, and she hated me having them come like that. Other than that she and I got along really good together. But she didn't like me having parties there.
She loved my kids so much, Grandma Tingey did. Budd is the youngest of twelve children. They had a ranch in Idaho and that is where they lived all their lives, but when their dad decided to retire, he was getting to old to ranch like he did, why, they came down here. That was when Budd was twelve years old. They moved to Centerville and bought nine acres of ground and there was a house on it. There was a big part of it that was pasture. Because it had a flowing well down there, it had it's own water. So they had a cow down there and then they built chicken coups. Then they put in an orchard of cherries, there was a lot of cherry trees on those acres and he planted one acre with peach trees. He thought that wouldn't be as bad as ranching, but it was a lot more work. He died of a heart attack when Budd was, I think he was seventeen, when his dad died. He went out to mile the cow and he just didn't come back in. They found him dead down there and he had had a heart attack.
We didn't have Jr. High in those days, they did in Bountiful, they had the one on 4th North. But, that was just for the Bountiful and Woods Cross area. Everyone North of that went to Davis High School, so we had four years of Davis High School. We didn't lave grade school till after the 8th grade.
I took speech all the way through High School, I loved that. I was in two plays. They had one play a year and when I was a Junior and a Senior I got to be in both of those plays. As a senior I was the girls association president. That's the only office I ever held. We were in charge of the girls dance and one or two parties during the year. It was fun and we had to do several assemblies that we were in charge of every year.
I skipped school a few times to go see Gone With the Wind. We were terribly shocked that they said damn at the end of the movie! One time our principle got really frustrated because lots of kids skipped school to go see it when it came out.
Well, I went to every dance. In those days you didn't have to be 16 before you could date. I started High School when I was 14 and I went to all of the dances. There was a boy who lived across the street from us, Russell Martin, and I went to the Prom with him that first year. The gang of boys he was with was a lot of fun and they were just a year older than the gang I ran around with, of girls, you know. There were seven of us in the crowd I ran with. There was my step sister, myself, Alice Burton, Barbara from Kaysville, and then Helen and Elizabeth Call from Layton, and Afton Briggs from Bountiful. I still meet with them, we go out at least two or three times a year and have lunch.
It's the same way with this group I have in Centerville. We have been an organized club for many years. When I was pregnant with Bruce we organized it, so it's been going for 60 years. And this literature club I'm in, I've been in it for over 40 years. A lot of people have moved and gone. This club we organized during the war, we added to it after the war and since then a lot have moved away. There are only seven of us left out of 18 to being with. All our husbands are gone too, there's only two husbands left. I think it was very fortunate that way, because if you don't have an outside life, other than your family and husband, then when something happens to your husband you are completely lost. That's what happened to my two sisters. Gloria didn't lose her husband, but she lived in such fear of him going that she committed suicide. She was really sick and she knew that if her husband died before her there would be no one for her. No one at all. Virginia, it wasn't long after Clifford died that she went to a nursing home because she didn't know how to handle it. She never had anyone but her husband. I think you need to have a lot of friends. You need to have some friends close enough that you can count on. I have admired Curt, most boys don't stay together, but his crowd has. They get together two or three times a year too. I think it's a good thing.
High School was fun. I was in with a really wonderful group of girls. It's funny how we got together. There were seven of us that would go and do things together. Isn't it funny that we could get close like that and live all over? Two of the girls married men that became very wealthy, Alice married a man who became a dentist and then he became an orthodontist and he had a really good business and her folks had money too. Then Elizabeth from Layton, why, her husband became the President of the company he was with in California and they became very wealthy. It's fun to get together with them, Elizabeth moved back to Utah her husband died before Budd did. There's only Afton who still has a husband. It's funny how young our husbands all died. My husband and Elizabeth's died really young and Helen's died young, then Martha's husband went. It's the same way with this group that I run around with here in Centerville. So many of our husbands died so young. And Frank White died just this week, his wife is one that has always been in our group in Centerville here. There are seven of us still alive and I think there was about twelve of us at one time. During the war our husbands all went to war, so we just started to get together once in a while and take the Bamberger and go into Salt Lake and go see a show or something. Sometimes we'd meet at each other's places. I was living with Grandma Tingey, and she hated me having them come like that. Other than that she and I got along really good together. But she didn't like me having parties there.
She loved my kids so much, Grandma Tingey did. Budd is the youngest of twelve children. They had a ranch in Idaho and that is where they lived all their lives, but when their dad decided to retire, he was getting to old to ranch like he did, why, they came down here. That was when Budd was twelve years old. They moved to Centerville and bought nine acres of ground and there was a house on it. There was a big part of it that was pasture. Because it had a flowing well down there, it had it's own water. So they had a cow down there and then they built chicken coups. Then they put in an orchard of cherries, there was a lot of cherry trees on those acres and he planted one acre with peach trees. He thought that wouldn't be as bad as ranching, but it was a lot more work. He died of a heart attack when Budd was, I think he was seventeen, when his dad died. He went out to mile the cow and he just didn't come back in. They found him dead down there and he had had a heart attack.
Friday, April 27, 2012
Childhood (Continued)
The people that bought the home from dad remodeled it so much that they took away the value of it being a pioneer home, they changed it so much. So when they sold it, it was in the business section of Kaysville, and the city wanted it for businesses. I can remember, in the area that was the dining room and the kitchen, we used to play Annie-I-Over. We played that a lot as kids. And the trees on the sides were black walnut trees, you don't see black walnut trees much anymore. Boy, how I hated having to pick up all those walnut shells. Then we'd have to take the shells off and they would turn your hand black. Black walnuts, they were black and your hands turned black too. On the other side of the house there was a big tree and you couldn't see the house behind it. It was the longer part of the house. It had two bedrooms up there. It sat on a large piece of ground so that we could have a garden and grow enough food so that we could can our fruits and can our vegetables. And that is what we did.
Dad was a gardener anyway, he loved to garden. But he, to make a living, worked in the Kaysville bank. But he had a pasture where he had cows and he had chickens, a lot of chickens. Eventually he quit banking and just raised chickens. So all through my older years of school, from the 3rd or 4th grade on up, we'd have to come home every day and collect eggs. I learned how to candle them. Candling them is putting them in a light where you can see whether there was blood in them or not. Once in a while we'd have one, so we had to candle every egg and then put them in a box after we had cleaned them. And we had to clean them with a brush that had sandpaper on it. Because if you put them in water they would get rotten too soon, they wouldn't stay fresh as long.
All through school, even when I was in High School, I was cleaning eggs. We'd kill chickens on Saturday. We'd get up really early and dad would kill the chickens and we'd have to clean them. Dad would sell them, he took orders for chickens. Oh my gosh, we all worked, anyway. A lot of work.
One thing my dad and mother loved was going to the temple. Of course they would. And they always went once a week. And in those days it was hard to get in to the Salt Lake Temple. It was far. And I can remember them going and every time they would go dad would tell us that when we were keepin ght efire goin g, becaus ewe were burning logs and coal back then, not to make a big fire in the stove or fireplace, wherever we were doing it, because sparks come out the chimney. And if sparks fall on the roof the house will burn. So when they left to go to the temple I spent half my time out looking at the roof to see if it was on fire. I was a worry wart when I was little. I would worry about things like that all the time.
We had East winds that were a lot worse than the ones we have now. And when ever we had an East wind we had boards that fit the big front window we would have to put on. It took three boards to cover it to keep the window from being broken because the house was facing East. And one time, when I was older, but still at home, when Dad had about 3,000 chickens, we had a strong East wind. There were three long rows of chicken coops on the property, we had thousands of chickens at a time that he was raising. This one big long line, there were three coops, and the roof was all one length covering all three coops. And an East wind came while they were at the temple one time and it lifted that roof right off. It was terrible and those poor chickens, he lost most of the chickens in those three coops. It was quite a set back for a while.
I didn't tell you another thing about while dad was on his mission when I was three years old. Between three and four years old and Bob was just a tiny little 18 month old. He sent us things for birthdays and stuff. He sent a little black doll to me for my birthday and I put it in bed with me and I wet the bed and I ruined that sweet doll. It took all of the paint right off of her face. I'll never forget that. It just ruined that doll, I still remember that doll, she had pigtails with little red ribbons around them. I love dolls, I always did. I loved to play dolls. And Virginia was just the opposite. She couldn't stand to play with dolls and if she got mad at me she would take a way my dolls as punishment. I can remember when Gloria was born, I was five years old. I wanted to take her for a walk in the buggy and mother wouldn't let me. But she let Virginia push her. I won't ever forget that either. I was so mad about that. As Gloria got older Mother would make me take her with me if I went to someone's house to play, because she wanted to go play too. And I hated that.
When my mother was alive we had family night and back then the church didn't tell you to do it. But my parents just did it every night. We would all gather in and I can remember mom pealing apples so that we could each have a pealed apple while dad talked. Dad loved to talk about religion. He was a preacher and we'd listen to him for a little while and then there was a program that would come on the radio. We didn't have television back then. So they would turn that program on each night and after that we'd go to bed. Some nights they couldn't do it but most of the time it was a nightly thing, but they didn't do it the night they went to the temple.
My mother died when I was 11 years old. She had to have a gall bladder operation and she didn't live through the operation. It was a terrible thing. It was really sad. It was hard the rest of our lives after that. Our whole lives were changed completely. Then dad married again with in a year. She died in August and he was married in June the next year. Well, he just didn't know what to do about his children. He had five house keepers come in and one or two of them left because they couldn't stand us and then he fired three of them because he couldn't stand them. There was one that I really liked. I can remember that so well. We all liked her, she would do anything for us, but dad caught her smoking and he wouldn't have anything like that around the house at all. He one time said, (this was when mother was still alive) "I want all of you children to promise me that unless you ever see me smoke, drink coffee, or drink liquor that you will never do it!" My oldest brother, see, but after mother died things just went to pot, he didn't live that promise. Other than that, we did. Now Gloria was really young when mother died, she was 6 years old. It just seemed like our family was torn apart. Aunt Luella came (married) and told dad she would have the youngest child from him, but the others were old enough to be on there own. And it ended up that Martha came, she was my age, and that was her youngest child. Lillian came and she was 20 years old and she really upset the family. And then she had an older son, I don't remember how old he was, I think he was in his late twenties or thirties, that came and lived there because he was mentally unbalanced. He could write, he had been to school and learned to write. He could write like a child of about eight, I guess. That was about his mentality. Everything that happened, he would get into things and do sneaky things. He wasn't to blame, I mean you couldn't blame him, but Aunt Luella would blame all of us, not him. No blame was ever put on any of her children. We were the ones who had to be punished for anything at all. It was just an awful time. I always got along with Martha though. She was my age and we were good friends. And we ran around with the same crowd in High School. With most kids it would be a split with something like that, but it wasn't with us. I still just love her. Her husband is dead and she hated him so bad. They had a terrible life together. They had five children and they had just a terrible life. I used to tell her to divorce him and she would tell me that if she did he would take the kids and everything so she would have nothing. Since he died she's just gotten worse. I try to get her to come and go places with me, but she never does. She lives right here in Centerville. She married Budd's cousin, Ralph, she's a Tingey. It's too bad I've always just loved her. It's amazing how we got along, her mother pampered her. Anyway, our lives really did change after mother died. Dad too, he wasn't the same person anymore.
I was so excited to go to school with the kids and my brothers and sisters. To get ready adn to go to school, that was just great. I liked school, I was so excited. The first day I went, when it was recess I went running home for lunch and my mother had to take me right back to school. I had to learn that you had recess and you got to go out and play for a little while, then go back in and then I could go home for lunch. When I started school all the kids went home for lunch. Or, would take lunches and eat at school. But eventually, I don't remember which grade it was, they started a lunch program and it was just soup. Different kinds of soup that the kids could buy for a nickel or a dime. I don't even remember how much it was. And oh, I wanted to do that so bad. Have some money so that I could do that, but we just didn't have it and I had to go home to get my lunch.
Dad was a gardener anyway, he loved to garden. But he, to make a living, worked in the Kaysville bank. But he had a pasture where he had cows and he had chickens, a lot of chickens. Eventually he quit banking and just raised chickens. So all through my older years of school, from the 3rd or 4th grade on up, we'd have to come home every day and collect eggs. I learned how to candle them. Candling them is putting them in a light where you can see whether there was blood in them or not. Once in a while we'd have one, so we had to candle every egg and then put them in a box after we had cleaned them. And we had to clean them with a brush that had sandpaper on it. Because if you put them in water they would get rotten too soon, they wouldn't stay fresh as long.
All through school, even when I was in High School, I was cleaning eggs. We'd kill chickens on Saturday. We'd get up really early and dad would kill the chickens and we'd have to clean them. Dad would sell them, he took orders for chickens. Oh my gosh, we all worked, anyway. A lot of work.
One thing my dad and mother loved was going to the temple. Of course they would. And they always went once a week. And in those days it was hard to get in to the Salt Lake Temple. It was far. And I can remember them going and every time they would go dad would tell us that when we were keepin ght efire goin g, becaus ewe were burning logs and coal back then, not to make a big fire in the stove or fireplace, wherever we were doing it, because sparks come out the chimney. And if sparks fall on the roof the house will burn. So when they left to go to the temple I spent half my time out looking at the roof to see if it was on fire. I was a worry wart when I was little. I would worry about things like that all the time.
We had East winds that were a lot worse than the ones we have now. And when ever we had an East wind we had boards that fit the big front window we would have to put on. It took three boards to cover it to keep the window from being broken because the house was facing East. And one time, when I was older, but still at home, when Dad had about 3,000 chickens, we had a strong East wind. There were three long rows of chicken coops on the property, we had thousands of chickens at a time that he was raising. This one big long line, there were three coops, and the roof was all one length covering all three coops. And an East wind came while they were at the temple one time and it lifted that roof right off. It was terrible and those poor chickens, he lost most of the chickens in those three coops. It was quite a set back for a while.
I didn't tell you another thing about while dad was on his mission when I was three years old. Between three and four years old and Bob was just a tiny little 18 month old. He sent us things for birthdays and stuff. He sent a little black doll to me for my birthday and I put it in bed with me and I wet the bed and I ruined that sweet doll. It took all of the paint right off of her face. I'll never forget that. It just ruined that doll, I still remember that doll, she had pigtails with little red ribbons around them. I love dolls, I always did. I loved to play dolls. And Virginia was just the opposite. She couldn't stand to play with dolls and if she got mad at me she would take a way my dolls as punishment. I can remember when Gloria was born, I was five years old. I wanted to take her for a walk in the buggy and mother wouldn't let me. But she let Virginia push her. I won't ever forget that either. I was so mad about that. As Gloria got older Mother would make me take her with me if I went to someone's house to play, because she wanted to go play too. And I hated that.
When my mother was alive we had family night and back then the church didn't tell you to do it. But my parents just did it every night. We would all gather in and I can remember mom pealing apples so that we could each have a pealed apple while dad talked. Dad loved to talk about religion. He was a preacher and we'd listen to him for a little while and then there was a program that would come on the radio. We didn't have television back then. So they would turn that program on each night and after that we'd go to bed. Some nights they couldn't do it but most of the time it was a nightly thing, but they didn't do it the night they went to the temple.
My mother died when I was 11 years old. She had to have a gall bladder operation and she didn't live through the operation. It was a terrible thing. It was really sad. It was hard the rest of our lives after that. Our whole lives were changed completely. Then dad married again with in a year. She died in August and he was married in June the next year. Well, he just didn't know what to do about his children. He had five house keepers come in and one or two of them left because they couldn't stand us and then he fired three of them because he couldn't stand them. There was one that I really liked. I can remember that so well. We all liked her, she would do anything for us, but dad caught her smoking and he wouldn't have anything like that around the house at all. He one time said, (this was when mother was still alive) "I want all of you children to promise me that unless you ever see me smoke, drink coffee, or drink liquor that you will never do it!" My oldest brother, see, but after mother died things just went to pot, he didn't live that promise. Other than that, we did. Now Gloria was really young when mother died, she was 6 years old. It just seemed like our family was torn apart. Aunt Luella came (married) and told dad she would have the youngest child from him, but the others were old enough to be on there own. And it ended up that Martha came, she was my age, and that was her youngest child. Lillian came and she was 20 years old and she really upset the family. And then she had an older son, I don't remember how old he was, I think he was in his late twenties or thirties, that came and lived there because he was mentally unbalanced. He could write, he had been to school and learned to write. He could write like a child of about eight, I guess. That was about his mentality. Everything that happened, he would get into things and do sneaky things. He wasn't to blame, I mean you couldn't blame him, but Aunt Luella would blame all of us, not him. No blame was ever put on any of her children. We were the ones who had to be punished for anything at all. It was just an awful time. I always got along with Martha though. She was my age and we were good friends. And we ran around with the same crowd in High School. With most kids it would be a split with something like that, but it wasn't with us. I still just love her. Her husband is dead and she hated him so bad. They had a terrible life together. They had five children and they had just a terrible life. I used to tell her to divorce him and she would tell me that if she did he would take the kids and everything so she would have nothing. Since he died she's just gotten worse. I try to get her to come and go places with me, but she never does. She lives right here in Centerville. She married Budd's cousin, Ralph, she's a Tingey. It's too bad I've always just loved her. It's amazing how we got along, her mother pampered her. Anyway, our lives really did change after mother died. Dad too, he wasn't the same person anymore.
I was so excited to go to school with the kids and my brothers and sisters. To get ready adn to go to school, that was just great. I liked school, I was so excited. The first day I went, when it was recess I went running home for lunch and my mother had to take me right back to school. I had to learn that you had recess and you got to go out and play for a little while, then go back in and then I could go home for lunch. When I started school all the kids went home for lunch. Or, would take lunches and eat at school. But eventually, I don't remember which grade it was, they started a lunch program and it was just soup. Different kinds of soup that the kids could buy for a nickel or a dime. I don't even remember how much it was. And oh, I wanted to do that so bad. Have some money so that I could do that, but we just didn't have it and I had to go home to get my lunch.
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